


Healing

by sal_black



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M, Oneshot, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:13:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25262905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sal_black/pseuds/sal_black
Summary: It´s not easy for anyone after the war. But maybe, just maybe, with Harry Charlie will start healing.
Relationships: (mentioned) Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Harry Potter/Charlie Weasley
Comments: 5
Kudos: 199





	Healing

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don´t own Harry Potter, because if I did, I certainly wouldn´t be writing this, would I?

Charlie´s apartment is minimalistic. It holds the bare necessities, and it doesn´t really look like it´s being lived in. The most-used room is the kitchen, which serves as the dining room as well. After that comes the bathroom, then the living room. The only room that is used less than the bedroom is the guest room.

Because Charlie has always been an outdoors kind of person – and since he´s living on his own, who is there to stop him from sleeping outside? He enjoys the noises the local nocturnal creatures produce, and it helps calm him more than anything else. He doesn´t have nightmares when he sleeps under the night sky – in his ´proper´ bed, there´s at least one every night, especially now, after the war.

His kitchen is the only personalised room. There is one wall that is completely plastered in photos. There are photos of his parents, his siblings, photos of him growing up. There is one photo of Ron, Hermione and Harry that was sent by Ron some time in his first year. When he enters the kitchen now, he has to turn his back to this wall immediately. He just can´t take the nine faces grinning up at him happily, as if nothing could ever hurt them.

He still keeps his normal routine, just to give himself the illusion that everything is alright. He gets up every morning, makes himself some breakfast and then grabs his broom to fly out towards the reserve. He tends to injured creatures, helps build new pastures and cares for the dragons. Often, lunch and dinner are spent with the other workers in the reserve. The routine helps – at least that´s what he tells himself. He ignores what´s happened, because otherwise he thinks he won´t be able to keep going. And he knows that that´s not what Fred would have wanted for him, really, so he pretends nothing has happened.

But still, he can´t look at the wall in his kitchen.

But then, one morning, there´s a knock on the door while Charlie is making breakfast. When he opens it, Harry stands there, looking worse for wear. Charlie leads him to the dining table, where Harry slumps down on a chair. He can´t take it anymore, he explains. The constant mothering, the questions, the reporters. He didn´t know where else to go, he says, because England is just too full, and Fleur is pregnant, and Charlie is the only other person he can think of. And so, the guest room rises on the list of most-used rooms.

Thing is, Harry isn´t minimalistic. He treasures every little thing he ever received from one of his friends, and he likes spreading them in his living space. When Charlie once asks him about it, he explains that it´s a privilege for him – being able to own anything that isn´t strictly necessary for surviving –, and so he cherishes the things he has. And within a week of Harry moving in, the living room has acquired two additional pillows in Gryffindor red, complete with a golden lion pattern, a large fluffy blanket in a deep blue and several books. It isn´t that Charlie doesn´t own any books, but his are neatly stashed away in a bookcase, not so much lying around everywhere. There are drawings and sketches pinned to every wall. There is one sketch of Hogwarts done in pencil, another one of a large black dog, a stag and a wolf playing on a clearing Charlie recognises from his own ventures into the Forbidden Forest. Several drawings are dedicated to Harry´s friends and family. Next to another detailed drawing of the black dog, there is one that shows a young man quite similar in looks to Sirius. His hair is shorter, and his eyes are a bit lighter, but the resemblance is clear. Underneath it, there are two words. _Thank you._

“It helps me come to terms with everything that´s happened,” Harry says about drawing once. “It´s like meditation, it calms me down.” And Charlie lets him, because the drawings are beautiful, and it lets him learn about Harry´s life.

Harry has also started making breakfast for the both of them. At first, Charlie protested. But once he gave in, he came to appreciate the variety of stuff that Harry prepares. Because yes, he can make breakfast, but his consists of toast and a glass of orange juice. After three weeks, Charlie has almost gotten used to waking up to different smells every morning. Sometimes there´s pancakes, or scrambled eggs with bacon, or fresh fruit.

One evening, Charlie realises that Harry is exactly what he needed after the war. By now, he doesn´t have to be careful when entering the kitchen anymore, because it isn´t the only thing that reminds him of his family any longer. There are pictures and drawings everywhere, and it helps him cope better than he expected. He´s taken to eating dinner at home – because by now, it is _home_ – and chatting with Harry afterwards. They talk about quidditch, about the going ons in Britain, about themselves. They begin talking about the people they have lost – tentatively at first, but they get more open fast. They share stories of pranks the twins have played, Harry tells the tale of the Marauders, as well as the one of Regulus Black, and Charlie talks about Tonks, whose child Harry is the godfather of.

Teddy lives with Andromeda now, Harry explains, because the witch wouldn´t have coped otherwise. He´s used to being alone, he adds as an afterthought. “You´re not alone,” Charlie tells him, then. “You´ve got Ron and Hermione, and mum. And me.” Harry looks at him, then quickly averts his gaze and blushes lightly. “Yeah.”

Harry stays for a long time. By December, it isn´t Charlie´s apartment any longer. It´s theirs. They both work for the reserve now, even if in different areas. While Charlie mostly looks after the dragons, Harry helps the healers with smaller creatures, especially snakes.

For Christmas, they go back to Britain. It´s nice seeing his family again, but for the first time Charlie really _gets_ why Harry came to him all those months ago. He´s gotten used to the quiet life with Harry, where they don´t need many words to understand each other, and being back, it´s just… a lot. There are still reporters lurking around every second corner, and while he loves his mum, he can´t take a lot of her false cheerfulness. The scars are still fresh in all of them, especially now, at the time of family. After only one day, he´s sure he wouldn´t ever have to work again if he got a knut every time the question “Are you alright?” was directed at him. Harry would probably be a billionaire.

It´s hard for all of them, he knows. But there is nothing he can do to help them get over their own ghosts, and so he and Harry depart two days later. They exchange their presents in the safety of their living room, not having wanted to share them with the whole family. He´d thought about getting Harry new drawing utensils, but in the end he´s found something that he thinks he would appreciate a lot more. When Harry looks up from unwrapping the present, there are tears in his eyes and he gives Charlie a watery smile. In his hand he clutches two second-hand books, one on seventh year transfiguration, the other on Charms. Charlie gives him a soft smile. “I never knew who they were, they only ever used their nicknames in conversations. And Lily isn´t such an uncommon name… But then you told me about Prongs, Padfoot and Moony, and I was reminded of those two books I got second-hand.”

He begins opening his own present and is completely stumped when he finds a sketchbook. He opens it, only to be met with the laughing faces of two completely identical boys, frozen in the moment as a canary sits in front of them. He turns the page, and there he sees seven redheaded children playing tag in the backyard of a topsy turvy house. The drawings aren´t enchanted to move, but he feels like he just has to reach out to touch them. Tears start forming in his eyes, and he ignores Harry´s mumbled “I´m sorry, I thought…” in favour of pulling him into a hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

The hugs lasts stronger than strictly necessary, but Charlie doesn´t really feel like pulling away. When he does, Harry´s face is flushed and he looks away, but he´s smiling.

The new year approaches, and in the last minutes of the year, Charlie looks around his – _their,_ he corrects himself – apartment to acknowledge the changes. It´s more personal now, there are touches of Harry everywhere. Drawings are littering the walls, each one telling a story of its own. The photowall in the kitchen is magically expanded to fit all the photos Harry has added. Redheads still dominate it, but there are other people on there as well. A young couple, the man with messy black hair and glasses, the woman with auburn hair and bright green eyes, are smiling and waving at him, next to a photo of a toddler flying on a kiddy broom. One part of the picture is ripped off, but it´s well concealed by another photo, this time of three young boys making faces at the camera, which seems to be shaking with laughter. The most recent photos show a woman with bushy, chocolate brown hair standing in front of another redhead, who has his arms wrapped around her protectively from behind, all four of their hands resting upon the woman´s stomach. There are many pictures of toddlers, with turquoise hair, black hair, green hair, red hair, the eyes also having all colours imaginable. The one that stands out most is the one with the toddler sleeping on a couch, his hair a light bubblegum pink, his arms wrapped around a wolf plushie.

Charlie smiles as he makes his way outside towards the silhouette standing out against the first fireworks lighting up the sky. They stand next to each other, just looking upwards, admiring the show. He wraps an arm around the slightly smaller man, who looks up at him, smiling. “Happy new year.” Harry still smiles, even though Charlie can sense his nervousness, and then the black-haired boy goes on his tiptoes to press a light peck on Charlies lips.

“Happy new year, Charlie.”


End file.
